Chapter 238: Central Qi Leaking Downwards

Limited by the terrain, the northern part of Central Heaven is the most secluded compared to the east, west, and south.

The Qiyan Forest, located three miles north of the city, has beautiful scenery and is a great place for the people of Central Heaven to go on spring and autumn outings.

Therefore, Jiang Yuan is not unfamiliar with this place.

It is now near dusk, and it happens to be the sweltering summer season, so there are no tourists, making it exceptionally quiet.

Jiang Yuan walked all the way to the Sunset Pavilion, the iconic structure of Qiyan Forest, and seeing that it was empty, she instead breathed a sigh of relief.

She walked slowly into the pavilion, sat down on the beauty bench, and twisted her handkerchief unconsciously.

The orange-red sunset shone through the leaves, casting dappled light spots on her plain-colored skirt.

Thinking about being alone together later, her ears uncontrollably heated up slightly, while a secret sweetness welled up in her heart.

While lost in thought, time seemed to pass much faster than usual.

The sunset faded away, and twilight gathered.

When she regained her senses from her chaotic thoughts, she was startled to realize that it had become completely dark.

Fortunately, today is the fifteenth of the month, and a bright silver moon hangs in the eastern sky, so it is not pitch black under the Sunset Pavilion.

Why hasn’t he arrived even though it’s so late?

Just as this thought emerged, she heard the sound of soft footsteps outside the pavilion.

Jiang Yuan hurriedly turned her head aside, revealing a hint of a young girl’s Life Qi manner.

You were the one who asked me to come, yet you made me wait so long.

A moment later, the footsteps entered the pavilion.

“My brother invited me, and I came as requested, so why are you so late?”

Jiang Yuan feigned a light reproach, her eyes glancing subconsciously at the person who had arrived.

Suddenly, her gaze froze. She saw that under the clear moonlight, the person standing three feet away from her was actually wearing embroidered shoes.

Jiang Yuan looked up abruptly.

“Hee hee, Older Female Cousin, seeing how you usually pretend to be elegant and quiet, it turns out you’re just a little slut~”

Yu Ruiyan revealed an exaggerated smile that did not fit the demeanor of a noble lady, and within her red lips, a row of fine white teeth appeared.

Reflected in the moonlight, they shone with a chilling white light.

“How did you…”

Jiang Yuan jumped up, then swallowed the stupid question of ‘Why are you here?’

She had been tricked!

They say love clouds one’s judgment. After seeing the letter, she had many wild thoughts, but she never imagined that the letter was forged by someone else.

After realizing this, she hurriedly looked left and right, searching for an escape route.

Since Yu Ruiyan had set a trap tonight, she must have planned to teach her a harsh lesson; no one would willingly walk into a trap.

“Hehe, Older Female Cousin wants to run away?”

Yu Ruiyan teased in the manner of a victor, then raised her hands and clapped twice.

Outside the pavilion, the maid Servants Name brought two burly men out from the shadows under the trees. Yu Ruiyan curled her red lips, “Older Female Cousin, you’re feeling amorous and want a man, right? Younger sister has already prepared them for you, and there are two!”

“Yan’er!”

Jiang Yuan subconsciously took a step back, looking at Yu Ruiyan in shock, and said incredulously, “Even if there is some unpleasantness between us, it is only a minor friction between sisters. How, how can you be so vicious!”

“Shut up!”

Yu Ruiyan let out a low rebuke, and the smile that had been on her face instantly disappeared, replaced by extreme hatred and ferocity, “You, a daughter of an outside mistress, are you worthy of calling me sister? What right do you have to compete with me for things? In terms of family background, appearance, and knowledge, where am I inferior to you? That Ding Suian is blind and ignores me! Both of you deserve to die!”

“…”

Jiang Yuan knew deep down that it would be difficult to escape tonight.

From Yu Ruiyan’s words, she understood that this cousin with no blood relation not only wanted to humiliate and kill her but also wanted to harm Ding Suian.

At this moment, the secretion of a large amount of adrenaline made her mind exceptionally clear, and she instantly saw through Yu Ruiyan’s plan to kill two birds with one stone.

She suddenly reached into her bosom, but as soon as her fingers touched the letter that imitated Ding Suian’s handwriting, Yu Ruiyan reacted, “Stop her! Don’t let her destroy that letter!”

Outside the pavilion, the two big men pounced into the pavilion like hungry tigers.

It’s too late!

Jiang Yuan had to give up for the moment and turned to run.

“Sun Brothers, I leave it to you, don’t kill her! Bring her back later~ Servants Name, you follow.”

Yu Ruiyan gave the order, glanced at the figure fleeing in the moonlight, curled her lips into a smile, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted at the back, “Older Female Cousin, don’t panic. Even if you destroy that letter, I can find someone to forge another one.”

“…”

The figure was silent, stumbling into the dense forest.

Although Jiang Yuan had a two-breath head start, due to the difference in Physique between men and women, the distance between them closed rapidly.

In just twenty or thirty breaths, the sound of pursuing footsteps, like a death knell, drew closer and closer.

The more anxious she was, the more chaotic things became. Her foot caught on a root, she stumbled, and crashed into a large tree, making her vision go black.

The Sun Brothers slowed their pace, approached from left and right, their faces full of lewdness.

Jiang Yuan leaned against the tree, raised her hand to pull out the silver hairpin from her hair, and without a word or a moment of hesitation, she stabbed it towards her neck.

Whether she was exhausted from running or lacked experience in suicide, her wrist suddenly went weak, and the force of the stab, which should have been full-strength, was much weaker.

Although it pierced the delicate skin on her neck, it was far from the point of ‘death’.

But the Sun Brothers were startled.

What a fierce young lady!

Both of them realized that she was not using ‘suicide’ to threaten them, but truly intended to die.

“Young lady, why suffer like this~ You just need to apologize to Miss Yu, and we will let you go.”

“Yes, yes, yes, don’t worry, we brothers won’t hurt you.”

The Sun Brothers forced out ugly smiles, trying to appease her.

After all, Yu Ruiyan had ordered ‘don’t kill her’.

Jiang Yuan’s rapid breathing calmed down a little. She looked up at the full moon above, and two lines of tears suddenly welled up in her almond-shaped eyes.

She didn’t know why she was crying, she just suddenly felt that living was so hard.

In the next life, I won’t be a human.

She pulled the silver hairpin against her throat back half a foot and stabbed down fiercely again.

This time, she aimed for the vital spot.

“Don’t!”

“Stop!”

The Sun Brothers and the maid Servants Name, who had just arrived, shouted in unison, but the next moment, they saw a bizarre scene.

They saw that Jiang Yuan’s hand, which was holding the silver hairpin, seemed to be tightly gripped by an invisible hand.

Although she was clearly exerting force and her face was flushed red, the silver hairpin stopped three inches from her neck and could not move forward another bit.

The Sun Brothers looked at each other.

“Is this young lady acting?”

“Doesn’t look like it. Hey, Big Brother, what is that smell?”

As they spoke, everyone smelled a very rich, cloying, sweet fragrance.

A faint red mist had, at some unknown point, permeated the Qiyan Forest.

“There is something weird.”

By the time Sun Da realized something was wrong, he couldn’t even finish the sentence ‘There is something weird’, and his eyes rolled back as he fainted to the ground.

Immediately after, Sun Er, Servants Name, and Jiang Yuan, who was struggling against the air, all went limp.

Inside the Sunset Pavilion.

Yu Ruiyan stood under the pavilion, tapping her fingertips impatiently against the pavilion pillar.

She was just waiting for the Sun Brothers to drag Jiang Yuan in front of her; she really wanted to see what kind of expression would be on that face that was usually so elegant.

The incident where the Princesss Residence was beaten up some days ago was regarded by Yu Ruiyan as the greatest humiliation of her life. She had privately discussed revenge with her brother, but her brother was cowardly and dared not act, saying one moment that ‘The Duke of Chu County is a person valued by Princess Xingguo Your Highness’, and the next that ‘The Duke of Chu County holds an important position and cannot be dealt with by ordinary means’.

Hehe, then let her brother see her own method of killing two birds with one stone!

Time passed, but the movement she expected from the depths of the forest did not come.

Just at this moment, a night breeze with wisps of cloying, sweet scent blew past.

Her hair fluttered and flew against her cheeks.

Yu Ruiyan raised her hand to tuck the hair behind her ear.

After tucking it once, there were still strands of hair fluttering on her face.

She tucked it again, and there was still more.

Why is this hair so annoying tonight?

She tucked it again, and it was still there.

Yu Ruiyan finally realized something was wrong. Her body stiffened, and she slowly lifted her head.

But she saw that directly above her, there was a creature, its lower body coiled around the crossbeam of the Sunset Pavilion, its upper body hanging down, staring at her with a pair of scarlet vertical pupils.

The annoying hair that she couldn’t seem to clear away originated from this.

‘Gurgle~’

Yu Ruiyan tilted her head back, a meaningless sound emitting from her throat. She wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t move; she wanted to scream, but could not make a sound.

Suddenly, she felt a warmth under her skirt.

Gurgling liquid flowed down her legs onto the blue brick floor of the Sunset Pavilion.

Central Qi leaking downwards, unable to stop the urination.